Unrequited
by Consuelo Higdon
Summary: /Oneshot/ If there was anything he knew concerning this situation, it was that he wished saying the phrase 'I love you' would not be a lie. /TFA Perceptor Red Alert AlertxPerceptor PerceptorxRed/


**This was written sporadically and made up as I went along, with the only piece of actual 'outlining' a previous oneshot I made and the song "The Scientist" by Coldplay, which is very fitting, I believe, to a romantic relationship between Red Alert and Perceptor.

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Perhaps the operative word for this would be 'ironic'.

Irony was when something happened that contradicts previous beliefs. For example, a person saying that your large workload for the deca-cycle was a fond occurrence. Or an event in history being interpreted differently by two different peoples in completely different ways. Or perhaps, in Perceptor's case, realizing that Red Alert loved him.

This was not only ironic for the obvious reasons. Perceptor had deleted his emotions, and thus was unable to reciprocate said feelings. The reasons he had given to other when questioned about his decision was almost exactly the same, if not very similar. He had wanted to make some extra space in his processor to store more information. Processing emotional occurrences and solidifying a personality took much energy within the processor, at varying degrees for each 'bot. For some, their emotions and personality were a large part of their processing capabilities, and thus they were more apt to social occasions and interaction; extroversion. However, without the personality and emotions to slow down the logical processing capabilities within his processor, not only would there be more storage space for information, but he would be more efficient and productive with his projects. But in truth, that was only one reason.

The other was that he was afraid.

Once again Perceptor found himself spending the majority of the night awake, unable to go into stasis. The reason was different each time. During his first years as a scientist, it was because he was so engrossed in a project he didn't realize how long it had been since he had begun. He would have just kept going, too interested and eager to see the result to stop for any measurement of time. While that reason was still viable, and a useful excuse for anyone who caught him in the lab at an unreasonable hour, lately it was more because he simply could not. His processor simply would not shut down, the thoughts of the day analyzing themselves and evolving within his processor. This was an example of the latter.

It had been some solar-cycles since Red Alert had told him. He was able to deduce the emotions before she had revealed them, true, but that was only a moment before. He had also noticed that there was something about that incident that caused a strange sensation that he vaguely recognized. Something that he had thought he had gotten rid of stellar cycles ago. An emotion.

Specifically, hope. In a simple play-by-play of what happened; Red Alert had collapsed onto the floor from the overwhelming emotions surging through her, and for a moment he felt hopeful. The thing that had caused his initial fear that led to him deleting his emotions entirely… it was about to finally be quelled in a way that deleting them could not. He had been afraid that Red Alert would not reciprocate _his_ feelings toward _her_.

Those days were so long ago that he had almost never accessed them from his memory core. Those first days in Boot Camp when he and his two best friends realized that they were simply not suited for life on the frontline. This wasn't a good thing, considering the war and its stunning lack of soldiers at the time. Except for Wheeljack; he had the potential to be a wonderful hand-to-hand combatant. But Perceptor and Red Alert? Highly unlikely.

So they had chosen alternatives. Perceptor had a knack for discovering how things worked, hence his name. He could discover how a biological circuit from a protoform functioned without collapsing on itself after just a moment of observation. And while some others didn't take this aspect into account, he _was _able to psychologically analyze a person's behaviors and mannerisms. He wondered how Red Alert was able to conceal hers so easily from him. He had always been fascinated by her, trying to understand her.

It was very difficult; for one thing, she was femme. One of the first things he had attempted to understand was why she was a femme, and why femmes even _existed _in the first place. He had soon discovered that her being a femme did in fact have an effect on her behavior; there was a constant feel of struggle coming from her. A sense of determination; in short, being a femme had caused her to experience prejudice from some 'bots, telling her that she was not as good as others. This only made her even more determined to become great at what she did. She had followed his path in becoming a scientist, and then decided to learn about biology and medical sciences. She became both a medic and a scientist.

Another thing that was difficult for him to understand about Red Alert was her emotions. So many times she had changed from one emotion to the other, starkly and noticeably. And yet, somehow, she had always tried to keep herself a bit more restrained around Perceptor. When he had first asked her about this, she had told him that it was because she was following his example. It wouldn't be a good idea to become emotional when working with dangerous chemicals and/or machinery. A logical train of thought. He had never questioned any further, content with her answer. She made a good show.

Now he could understand it a little bit better. Red Alert had been purposely hiding all of her emotions from Perceptor to avoid suspicion on his part. She did not want him to know that she was developing feelings for someone who could not return them. This was also a logical train of thought. If you wish to love something, then it must be one that can return the feelings on some level in order to avoid depression. He had deduced that she had attempted to stop them before they grew too far. Before they became a hazard to her well-being and performance. She did not want to be distracted.

But from what? The world that Perceptor had dedicated himself to; the world of numbers and reality. The world of truth, not nonsense. The cold, hard, complicated world of science. To the universe, everything is either black or white. It works or it does not, there is no exception.

Is there? One thing Perceptor was certain; he knew how he felt about all this. He knew how he felt during his earlier years. He knew he had felt so happy and wonderful around Red Alert, he knew he had felt afraid that she did not return the feelings; he knew he was afraid of the depression that would come from a rejection. He was not strong enough to deal with depression, and he was not experienced enough to understand love back then. So he had deleted all of his emotions, so that nothing as chaotic and unorderly would happen to him. He was not willing to accept gray areas in his logic, and he refused to give into the urge to form bias. He refused to see the colors that saturated the whites and the gray in the world that he just now realized was where he should be. It was where all of his friends were. It was where Red Alert was.

But he couldn't. To go to Wheeljack and smile at his antics would make him a hypocrite. To go to Sentinel Prime and become impatient with him would make him a traitor. To see the twins that made Project Safeguard and pat them on the backs in a show of fatherly affection would confuse them to no end. To go to Red Alert and tell her that he loved her would make him a liar.

He wished it wouldn't make him a liar.


End file.
